Mark Goodge wrote:
> On 1 Sep 2007 06:24:05 GMT, Blinky the Shark put finger to keyboard
> and typed:
>
>>Bad Subject header -- couldn't condense this issue into something that
>>short that made sense. Sorry.
>>
>>A few years ago I installed a little PHP script at blinkynet for contact
>>emailing. It was a freebie, but required a visual plug for the
>>company/author appear with the form (and on the mail-send-confirmed
>>page).
>>
>>Now whois shows a new creation date in Nov 2006 for the domain, and it
>>seems to have nothing to do with whomever I got the script from.
>>
>>Here's the old apparently one-page site from which I got the script, as
>>it appears at the way-back archive from Jan 1 '04.
>>
>>http://tinyurl.com/yr2vzv
>>
>>Here's the new outfit that has the same name.
>>
>>http://scriptsthatwork.com/
>>
>>Looks like some kind of whatever you call sites that are nothing but
>>links to other sites. And not at all focused: essays for college
>>students, health, vacation, blah blah blah.
>>
>>Opinions, please. Do I owe *these* guys the mentions and links?
>
> The copyright is still the property of the author; that didn't
> transfer to new owners of the domain (unless they explicitly bought it
> from him, which is extremely unlikely). So the copyright notice in the
> script is now incorrect, and, from a pedantic point of view,
> continuing to credit the domain is actually now a breach of copyright
> (although the fact that the notice was wrongly worded to begin with
> would absolve you from any responsibility in the unlikely event that
> anyone was to sue you). So you certainly do not owe the new owners of
> the domain anything. You do, however, owe the original author a credit
> at his currently contactable address, provided you are able to
> ascertain that with reasonable effort.
>
> The legally and morally correct solution, therefore, is to try and
> find the owner's current website and check that for any updates. And,
> in fact, Google comes to the rescue with this:
>
> http://formtoemail.com/

I'm embarrassed that I didn't think to look for a current place for the
author.

> which is clearly the same script and therefore where your credits
> should now be pointing.

Actually, that script is several times as long as the simple one that I
got from the former website. But yes, it's clearly derived from that
one, so I'm not saying it's not from the same author.

Thanks, Mark.

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